Teddy Bear
by slash mania
Summary: Arthur would have put it in writing as proof. He would have written it in his own handwriting rather than typing it out. He would have also signed it twice. 'I had no intention of making a teddy bear in the likeness of Eames.' But he did. Arthur/Eames slash!


A.N- …yes, I have just written a story about Arthur making a teddy bear version of Eames. I am blaming the Saturday morning commercial about Build A Bear Workshop that I sat through waiting for cartoons to come back on. Over my cereal I had asked myself, 'I wonder what it would look like if Arthur or Eames made a teddy bear in the other's likeness in a story?' And then I cursed, put my cereal bowl down, and wrote the idea down on my white board. I'm going to miss these moments when there will be nothing but color coded assignments and due dates for my classes up there within a week.

Disclaimer: I do not own Inception. At all. But that's alright! I also don't own Build A Bear Workshop- if they have tweed jackets and paisley shirts for their bears to wear that's great- and if they don't it's a story where they do because I _need_ for there to be paisley and tweed!

Teddy Bear

Arthur would have put it in writing as proof. He would have written it in his own handwriting rather than typing it out. He would have also signed it twice.

'I had no intention of making a teddy bear in the likeness of Eames.'

He really didn't. It was obvious to anyone that knew him that he wouldn't have done such a thing willingly or had given it a sacred place on any sort of to do list.

It began with a job that was scheduled during a carnival. The job went off without a hitch and when he had left the tent he had secured for this mission, carrying the PASIV in its shiny silver briefcase, he had run into Eames.

They had all separated once they had woken up from a short dream session spent making their mark Hanson, divulge why he was stealing from the owner of this traveling carnival. The owner had provided the tent and the security to mind it while Dom, Ariadne, and Eames went down to do their dream thievery.

Arthur was the one that had stayed in reality to mind their security, worried that something shady might occur if they all went under as it had originally been planned.

It all went smoothly and the well muscled security didn't take their chance to bash Arthur over the head and steal the PASIV or their money or anything pertaining to their false identities like forged social security numbers or ID cards.

The Point Man was the last to leave as he was the one to pack everything up, giving Eames plenty of time to play the games and win at least one stuffed animal while lagging around.

When Arthur ran into the Forger, the first thing he saw was the modest sized teddy bear that the man was presenting to him with a smile.

"For a job well done, Arthur! I won you a teddy bear that you can cuddle anytime you want while thinking of _me."_

Arthur had rolled his eyes, taking the bear without really meaning to.

"I don't require anything to _hug _while thinking about you, Eames. Maybe to throttle, but not hug."

Eames winked at him with a playful look in his eyes. "Think of it as a thing for emergency use only- 'Break the glass and then, have a cuddle.'"

Arthur had been about to give with a good comeback. An excellent comeback. Something along the lines of 'I'd cuddle a pillow before I cuddle this bear' or 'Why would I cuddle something you gave me for comfort?'

The Point Man didn't have a chance as Eames pulled an excellent disappearing act. Arthur had been sure that he would find the Forger within the hour, but, it didn't happen.

Arthur couldn't find Eames for months, and after the sixth month passed with not a single phone call, text message, or email from the Forger, Arthur _did_ feel like a cuddle.

That was how in a roundabout sort of way Arthur had found himself in a Build A Bear Workshop.

* * *

On one of Arthur's off days he finally noticed that he still had the bear. It was sitting on top of a dresser, looking soft, huggable, and very naked.

The Point Man wasn't the sort of person that thought that toy bears had to have clothing. They were covered in fur and had no gender specific parts. He supposed that it was natural to believe that a bear should be wearing clothing after years of being exposed to themed bears.

There were bears for every holiday. Bears for every situation. And there were bears costumed as many personalities or found as figures in the media, books, or movies.

With no work to occupy his mind, Arthur had noticed his bear's lack of clothing and considered what exactly he would dress it up in if he actually chose to do so.

When he looked at it he only thought of Eames.

Eames' gift of the bear to him. The Forger's snide remarks about how Arthur should cuddle it while he was away. The fact that Eames had made no effort to come into contact with him for six months…

While Arthur was having these thoughts, he received a call. And after he got over his short lived moment of hope that it would be Eames, he answered Ariadne's call.

It was harder than he thought to at least sound pleasant about it and offer to help her with her task.

It also gave him an excellent excuse to look for toy bear clothing that matched Eames'.

* * *

Ariadne had a problem.

In forming a more than business-relationship with Dom, she had fallen into a strange set of circumstances. While she was having an adult relationship with Dominic Cobb, she had to fall into childlike negotiations with the two Cobb _children_.

They liked her just fine- James following her like a duckling and greatly enjoying the complex things she could create with his building blocks, and Phillipia as the older child had moments of a shy sort of resentment because Ariadne was replacing her dead mother in some ways.

To Ariadne, it meant bribes and what better way to bribe a growing girl than with a teddy bear? It was soft, inoffensive, and could maintain watch of her bedroom from the head her bed, like any good teddy bear should.

Ariadne wanted Arthur to be with her for this trip to Build A Bear Workshop. While the man was a genius at paradoxal architecture he wasn't a great source of information on what was the best sort of bear to get for a girl barely reaching into her teens.

She didn't know why she wanted the Point Man with her. Arthur had seemed to be kind of down lately. Dom hadn't been able to spot it and gave her the most interesting of looks as he listening in on her asking for Arthur's help for this task.

Even Arthur's tone of voice as he agreed to help her seemed unusually flat.

Seeing him in person didn't give her any hints as to _why_ he wasn't feeling at his best despite his not mentioning it, but when she saw him looking over the clothing available for the bears she had gotten an idea.

Arthur had picked up the most ridiculous looking shirt he could find, and when she noticed that it was paisley, Arthur's behavior raised a red flag.

In addition to the shirt, Arthur had picked up a little mock tweed jacket, and something that looked like slacks for bear's.

When Arthur caught her looking he shrugged. "I thought my bear required clothing," was all he said and went back to helping her choose a bear and an outfit for the bear that would soon be Phillipa's. Ariadne didn't want to cause hurt feelings between the Cobb children by getting one a gift and not thinking of the other, so she had made sure to buy a large box of Legos for James before entering the Build A Bear Workshop.

After a brief argument as to what gender to dress Phillipa's bear as, Arthur helped Ariadne dress the _girl_ bear in something that was fashionable in an understated sort of way. It was a nice little dress that came with a matching hat, and after Arthur's insistence, an umbrella.

"Why does it need an umbrella?" Ariadne asked, trying to work her way up to ' You have a teddy bear? Why are you purchasing bear clothes that look like something only Eames would dare wear?'.

Arthur shook his head at her umbrella question and smirked. "Who doesn't like their toys to have accessories? Barbie gets a Dream House and every action figure I ever saw had some neat gadget to go with it!"

Ariadne wasn't sure how to even begin to broach the question of the clothing Arthur was buying, and it seemed that he wasn't going to say anything else about it either.

* * *

When Arthur got home he sat down and dressed the bear in what the Point Man could only call a uniform. It was something that Eames wore regularly- an outfit that positively screamed that it represented the characteristic bad taste of the Forger.

He knew that Ariadne had noticed, but in a way, Arthur didn't care.

It was kind of silly, but he thought that he would feel better about Eames having fallen off the grid if he had his own representation of the man sitting around his apartment.

Once it was fully clothed in its ugly paisley shirt, tweed jacket, and slacks, Eames the bear was almost perfect.

After searching around the drawer Arthur kept for odds and ends, he had finally found something that Eames had given him at one of the first jobs they had worked together. The site had been a casino and afterwards, it hadn't taken a rocket scientist to find the Forger lurking around the game tables.

Arthur hadn't even been sure _why_ he had to talk to the man afterwards. The job had been done perfectly; it was seamless enough that the Forger dared to show his face in the place he had just ripped off in a dream to do the same in reality. When Arthur had found him, Eames was playing with a poker chip.

"A smart man would have cut his losses and left already, Mr. Eames."

The Forger smiled brightly at Arthur, slinking over towards him with all the sinuous grace of a cat.

"You should know me by now, darling. I'm a gambler at heart- I always think that the next game will be the winner and my luck will turn."

Arthur had smiled then, thinking of his totem - the little red loaded die. Because where Eames reportedly depended on an outside source for his luck, Arthur made his own.

The Forger had slipped the poker chip into Arthur's pocket where it would be forgotten after Eames was chased out for some minor infraction. It had gone into a drawer and laid there to gather dust until the day Arthur decided that his Eames bear needed an accessory.

So, Arthur dusted off that old poker chip and lovingly placed it into the pocket of Eames the bear's slacks. It wouldn't be right, and it wouldn't be a real Eames bear if it didn't have a totem of its own.

But that was the problem with the bear. Arthur really shouldn't have tried to make it a _real_ Eames bear, because that would only complicate things further.

Needless to say, when he started sleeping with it, things began to feel weird.

* * *

It had been an accident at first.

Arthur had left the bear on the bed after he had finished dressing it and doing the final touches.

Eames the bear had just sat there against his pillows, comfortable, and a-okay as Arthur left the room to do some busy work at his laptop in the other room.

The work took Arthur a long time. Or, long enough to make the Point Man tired past the point mumbling exhaustion.

It had ended with Arthur closing down the laptop for the night, skipping dinner, and falling into bed. When he had rolled over and came face to face with Eames the bear, Arthur didn't really think about what he was doing.

Arthur cuddled the bear and fell asleep, feeling much younger and certain that if anyone ever caught him he would die of embarrassment.

But, when he woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and a little silly to have his arms wrapped around a small teddy bear wearing an exact replica of what a coworker of his would wear, he could have slapped himself.

He had come to his senses and put the slightly squashed bear far away from him so he could drag himself out of bed, into the shower, and then get on with his day.

* * *

Arthur started to sleep with the bear regularly.

It had become a part of his routine.

Work till he was half dead, eat, call it a day and strip out of the clothes he had been wearing to curl up in bed in something more comfortable- and then, hug the bear until he fell asleep.

Arthur didn't blame himself, if in his exhaustion, he said something he shouldn't.

Something that was usually along the lines of, 'Goodnight, Eames.'

The Point Man wasn't stupid. He didn't have these fantasies that the real Eames, wherever he was out in the world pointedly _not_ taking his calls and covering up his tracks way too neatly, that the man could somehow _hear_ Arthur say goodnight to him.

It made Arthur feel a little bit better anyway, because as long as he thought of it, he could entertain the thought that Eames might be wishing him goodnight as well.

It was to that thought that Arthur usually went to sleep, hugging the bear as it wore just its slacks and its paisley shirt. Arthur had thought that the bear looked uncomfortable sleeping in its tweed coat, slipped it off, and gently folded it across the nightstand next to his alarm clock.

After he did that each night for a week it hit him that there was no way in hell that the bear could feel uncomfortable in the coat while it slept because it wasn't alive and it didn't sleep.

But Arthur kept doing it anyway just as he kept saying goodnight to the bear.

* * *

It didn't take long for Arthur to start talking to Eames the bear, like actual conversations. He was alone in his apartment and he was a little worried about the real Forger. Or very worried about the Forger because it had already been _seven months_ with no word and Arthur had spent a whole month spending time with a _bear_ that was dressed like the missing man.

Since there was so much wrong with that situation, Arthur tried not to think about it.

Sitting the bear at the table, a few phonebooks placed on the seat of the chair directly across from Arthur as he sat down for simple cereal, boosted Eames the bear to eye level and almost made it look like Arthur actually had a guest for breakfast.

Never mind that it's what children did!

It comforted Arthur in a strange way to see that the Eames bear was in his line of sight as he ate. It seemed perfectly natural to start a conversation.

"If he were really here, I'd get laughed out of the room."

There was the expected silence from Eames the bear.

"Not to mention there would be lots of messed up jokes about how I slept with a teddy bear that looks like him. A bear that I set out to _make_ look like him…"

More silence.

Arthur pushed his bowl of cereal away to rub his hands across his face, frustrated.

"I've lost it," Arthur said to himself, voice muffled as he held his hands against his face.

"No," a rich, dearly missed voice said from behind him. "Well, okay, maybe a little bit. But I can't say that I'm not flattered."

Arthur jumped out of his chair and sent his bowl of cereal flying to spill its contents on the floor.

As he spun to take in the Forger, who was, of course, being rather smug as he enjoyed the other man's shock.

Arthur wanted to ask a question. 'How did you get in here?' would be a good start, but, the Forger was great with a set of lock picks.

But, The Point Man ended up leading with the ultimate of 'poor me' questions.

"Why haven't you answered any of my calls?!"

The Forger looked pleased by his worry- Arthur couldn't stop the way his eyes flicked over the other man's form. Taking in the bad clothes Eames had on, ironically, the paisley shirt and tweed combination that his bear counterpart was wearing too.

Eames was leaning a little to the side, looking over Arthur's shoulder, eyes widening only slightly when he caught sight of the bear that was dressed like him.

The Forger returned his attention to Arthur for a moment.

"I never knew that I could be so adorable in bear form, or, that you'd be the one to do it! Did you miss me that terribly and need something to cuddle?"

Arthur opened and closed his mouth, feeling ridiculous in his black bathrobe. "Yes," Arthur answered sharply, pleased when Eames eyes widened. "I did miss you. And yes, I dressed the bear up to look like you- it even has its own poker chip totem! Ariadne probably thinks that I've gone off the deep end making something like this just because I miss you."

Eames nodded. "When I came into town I ran into her on accident and I got the whole story- she thinks that you're depressed, and I laughed when she said it."

But the Forger didn't look like he was laughing now. He only looked concerned and apologetic as he leaned forwards to press a kiss against the Point Man's cheek. "I am sorry, darling. I had a long line of jobs and had to destroy a great many cell phones along the way. Dropping from the grid was my only choice after one job went kind of nasty but I'm sorry that I worried you. If it makes you feel any better, I was missing you as well."

Arthur laughed, blushing from that chaste peck on the cheek. He shook his head. "Really? I made a bear. I made an _Eames bear _so I could hug it and talk to it and fall asleep next to it!" As Arthur said these things, his cheeks were stained bright red with his embarrassed blushing. "I would love to see you beat that, Mr. Eames!"

The Forger smiled and nodded, raising a hand to beg for a minute to fetch something.

When he returned he held a bag, something that he must have carried with him from god knows where as he ran around the globe. As Eames fished around inside of it, Arthur noticed spare changes of more terrible clothes, a shaving kit, a cell phone charger, and then- something small and fuzzy…

Arthur's mouth went dry when Eames pulled out a second teddy bear from his bag. Letting the bag sit on the floor between them, Eames held up the bear with a loving smile.

It, Arthur couldn't help but notice, was dressed _very_ nicely. The bear was wearing a white dress shirt, a tie, and a waistcoat. Arthur thought that he saw suspenders on the bear attached to its pair of black slacks. Attached to a paw was a little sliver briefcase, and as Eames fished around in a pocket for a second, he produced a red die only to put it back after a moment.

In the face of Arthur's shock, Eames could only shrug.

"Great minds think alike, darling. You didn't see me win the second bear at that carnival, and well, after I had been separated from you for awhile I got kind of lonely and was missing you. So, I said to myself, where can I go to find some clothing fit for a stylish Arthur bear? It took some time, but I got it all on the go." Eames was laughing to himself as he pushed the Arthur bear towards the Point Man.

Arthur accepted it after a moment and raised an eyebrow at Eames.

"Go on," the Forger said in delight. "Squeeze him around the middle!"

After spending a second doing nothing but _staring_ Arthur did as he was asked, gently squeezing the Arthur bear around the middle.

He almost jumped when he heard a static laced version of his voice come from the bear.

"_Goodnight, Eames,"_ the bear said, as a voice recording played from inside the bear.

Arthur stared at it and then at Eames. He was trying to remember when he had ever said goodnight to Eames, and where it would have been available as a recording. The only thing he could think of was a voicemail and there were only a handful of those that Arthur ever said goodnight to the other man. Well, except for the very last one before the Forger disappeared.

It had been a simple, 'Job well done, will work with you some other time in the future, oh- look at the time, goodnight' sort of message.

It left all sorts of questions. Like, when did he create the recording for this little voice box? When did he manage to do this if he had been trashing so many cell phones? How long did Eames plan to make a toy bear that had such a phrase available with just a hug?

And then, there was a much smaller part of him that was smiling like a fool because if Eames had this bear with him for a substantial portion of his time away, but was actually sleeping with it, there was a very good chance that for all the times that Arthur said goodnight to Eames the bear, Eames was saying goodnight to Arthur the bear making it so that in some very bizarre way, their messages _did_ get across.

The Point Man was aware that that did sound _very_ sappy and cute tough so he was ready to keep that to himself.

Having a toy bear that looked like Eames was a bad enough hit against his respectability.

When Arthur came back to himself he was looking down at the bear that Eames had made, and then, forced himself to look up at the Forger who was holding himself very stiffly. He seemed unsure of what to do or how to proceed.

Arthur smiled at him and gave him the Arthur bear.

"If I asked you nicely, could you tell me how to find one of those gadgets?"

Eames, surprised by Arthur's question, nodded. "Of course, darling."

Arthur hummed to himself. "And if I asked, would you record a special message for _my_ bear?"

Eames looked over Arthur's shoulder again to spot the bear that was dressed like him- and after a second, he didn't realize how close Arthur had come, pressing himself against the Forger and looping his arms around the man's neck.

"What do you want me to say, darling," Eames asked.

The bear that Eames still held was posing as an obstacle in Arthur's mission to get as much of their bodies in contact with one another as possible, and Eames was kind enough to take the bear in one hand and gently set it on top of the table that was behind Arthur.

With that hold around the Forger's neck, Arthur whispered into the man's ear.

What Arthur said made Eames' eyes widen in surprise. And then smile, and then make it so they took the quickest course to Arthur's bedroom as possible.

It can be safely assumed that he received a very warm welcome after being gone for so long, because while it is understandable to hug or cuddle a stuffed animal like a bear if you miss someone it always pales in comparison when you actually have that special somebody in your arms.

* * *

The Arthur and Eames bears looked very cute sitting near to one another on top of a dresser, or sharing space at the head of a bed with the pillows, or sitting on the couch.

The Eames bear had been outfitted with a voice box with Eames' special message to Arthur recorded and ready to play with just a single hug.

Eames had asked for a different message for his Arthur bear, and got the Point Man himself to record it, blushing a little at the heartfelt sentiment.

Now, when the Arthur bear was hugged, he said in Arthur's voice 'I love you, Eames.'

And when the Eames bear was hugged, he said in Eames' voice 'I love you too, darling.'

The End

A.N- I think it was cute! Might need some more work on it, but it was still cute!

To be honest I've been sick since this Sunday and have been having a horrible time with it. I have broth and soup and orange juice to sustain me aside from the cough syrup and other medicines I've been taking. The whole time I've been writing Arthur and Eames fan fiction and have desperately wanted an Eames bear to cuddle because I feel so lousy. Or I want to experience TLC from Eames like in _The Alphabet According to Eames- I is for Ill._ I have soldiered on and I will make it back to good health before my semester starts…I hope!

But still. If you enjoyed this story go ahead and review- and if you didn't enjoy this story, review anyway and tell me what's up.

Thanks!

-slash mania


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